Southern Women in Popular Culture

Gone With the Wind is a 1939 movie based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Mitchell. The movie follows the story of Scarlett O’Hara, a young Southern woman who cares little for others and loses the privileged position she once held as the Civil War destroys her homeland. Scarlett is, at the start of the film, roughly the same age as the diarist Alice Williamson, yet Scarlett shows few signs of emotional maturity even as the war progresses and destroys the life she once knew. Gone With the Wind remains one of the most successful films of all time and its romanticized portrayal of the Old South has become a quintessential influence on popular remembrances of Southern men and women.